Chapter 20: Christmas
I get off my broom and walk over to Viktor, I hold my hand to him and say, "Good game, Viktor."
"Good game, Iris." he says before I turn and find Dumbledore giving me a disappointed look.
"Miss Potter. Why did you feel the need to ensure those Bludgers hit Mr. Weasley? He has been sent to St. Mungos for recovery because of how badly he was injured." he says.
"He cursed the Bludgers. Therefore he attacked himself. I saw him putting his wand away after they started following me, no one else in the crowd had a wand out." I tell him with a glare, "I think you should consider his reasoning behind wanting to knock me off my broom while I was about five hundred feet in the air."
"Miss Potter, are you not even a bit remorseful?" he asks.
"Why would I be remorseful about something that I didn't do?" I ask him blankly.
"You sent Mr. Weasley to St. Mungos." Dumbledore says.
"No, if you are referring to the cause of his injuries than Mr. Weasley sent himself to St. Mungos, if, however, you are speaking about who had him transferred to said hospital then I believe that Headmistress McGonagall is the one that sent him to St. Mungos." I tell him.
"I'm afraid that I'm still going to give you a detention for his injuries." he says.
"You forget, Lord Dumbledore, that you no longer hold the power to give punishments." I tell him before turning to McGonagall, "If you cast a magical signature recognition charm on the remains of the Bludgers and you will see that the one who cursed them was Mr. Weasley himself. Because he was hit with his own cursed Bludgers, than he is the one who injured himself, therefore if there is anyone to blame for it, it is him and you should punish the responsible party accordingly."
She nods and I head back to the castle with the Avengers. As we're walking I sigh and say, "I need to run into town and get a nice outfit for the torture event. Natasha, would you like to come with?"
"Sure, when can we go?" she asks as we're joined by Viktor and Cedric.
"We could go right now if we wanted too. I'm allowed to do that so long as I'm not skipping my classes. Seeing as it's currently winter break I have no classes to attend." I say.
"Then lets go now." she shrugs and I nod before changing directions.
As we walk I say, "I also promised I'd pick up my friend's orders when I got my outfit."
"Alright." she says as we walk to Hogsmead. It only takes us fifteen minutes to get to the village and find the store we need. After a while I decide on a style of dress robes I like and pick out a deep forest green material for the shirt that goes under the robes and black for the robe itself.
When I get done with my fitting I pick up my order and the orders of all my friends before walking back to the school with Natasha, arriving just in time for dinner and passing out the orders before taking my seat. A couple days pass before Ronald returns to the school. Right now I am sitting with Hermione at our table, I'm eating a snack and working on my Ancient Runes assignment.
I grab a piece of my chocolate and, half way to my mouth a hand gets in my chocolates path and I end up biting into it. I release it as the person who got in my way of chocolate screams in pain before collapsing. I look down and find Ronald.
"You dead, Weasley?" I ask with a frown before putting the bit of chocolate into my mouth; reaching down and feeling for breath. I feel air go onto my hand and sigh sadly. "He's alive." I sit up properly and look at the Weasley Twins before saying, "Ronnikins is having issues. Take him to the hospital wing, will you? Also, while you're there please figure out why he decided to walk up to us and try to steal my food."
They drag him out and I continue what I'm doing until Harry and Neville walk up to me, Neville clears his throat and I look up at him, so he says, "Flitwick handed in the background tests. We went though them...you might want to take a look at Lily's, age seventeen specifically."
He offers me the page and I take it before looking at the line he told me too. There's a line of spells that were apparently placed on her, all of which are designed to lock her within her own mind and force her to act like the 'perfect wife', following after her husbands orders. I tense up before looking at Harry and Neville and asking, "Anything on James'?" they look down and shake their heads. I take a breath and raise to my feet, "This is nothing a purifying potion can't fix. Harry, our parents are most likely going to be getting a divorce soon."
"Oh no, wherever shall we go after they split?" Harry asks sarcastically.
"I might have the potion, Neville, Harry, bring Lily to my trunk." I tell them before walking out. I swim to my trunk and enter my potions lab, I search through my shelves and find the icy blue potion right as there's a knock on the trunk lid. I walk out, set the potion in the kitchen, and go answer the lid, I open it and find Harry, Neville, and Lily. I move to the side and say, "Come in; I was just heading in to make some drinks. Any preferences?"
"Hot Chocolate?" Lily asks, Neville and Harry agree so I nod before heading back to the kitchen.
I make us all some hot chocolate and put the potion in Lily's cup before bringing them and passing them out. We all sit together and I look at Lily before asking, "Do you know why I asked for you to come here?"
"No, Harry just said you needed to talk to me." she says while nervously looking at her coco.
"Its safe to drink." I say, rolling my eyes a bit. "I added a bit of calming drought because I've seen how worried you get when you're away from James."
She nods before drinking her beverage...all in one go, seriously. That must have hurt her throat. I take a drink of mine and watch as her green eyes suddenly become much come brighter and she gasps.
"I...you...you figured it out!" she says happily before her face becomes much angrier and she angrily says, "Those stupid, manipulative, I'm gonna kill them both!"
"Maybe I should have added an actual calming drought to the coco as well." I say as I take another drink. Lily whirls around to look at me as I set my cup down. She then jumps forward and pulls me from my seat, hugging me tightly.
"My poor baby girl!" she sobs and I begin wondering if she's bipolar, "I'm so sorry for sending you away! I didn't want to do it! Please forgive me! I'm sorry!"
"Um...Lily," I say gently, "could you please take a breath and calm yourself down? I think this is the most emotions I've ever seen you express and its kinda setting me on edge."
She pulls away and take a breath before saying, "Sorry. I've just...got a lot of pent up emotions."
"I understand that...but maybe you should divorce James instead of murdering him." I suggest and she nods before taking another breath. "Now, we should head back out before people begin suspecting that I murdered you. I'll get Andromeda Tonks to draw you up some divorce papers."
She smiles sadly and says, "Alright, let's head back out. I need to get back to work or Filtch will have my head."
I nod before we all exit. We go about the rest of the day as normal with the exception of me being informed by Madam Pomphrey telling me that Ronald had some sort of paralyzing venom injected into him; which I guess means I'm venomous, that's cool. I send the letter to Andromeda Tonks before going to sleep.
The next few days pass quickly and now its Christmas and I have just floo'd to the farmhouse. I dust myself off before walking into where I hear people moving around, the kitchen. I see Aunt Petunia, Serra, and Anna cooking food for everyone, Rick and Dudley are talking at the table. I smile as Aunt Petunia notices me in the doorway and gasps.
"Iris! You made it!" she says happily and I walk over to her.
She gives me a hug and I tell her, "Harry and Lily might be coming too."
She nods and I notice Anna looking confusedly at the instructions. I walk over and show her how to do what she seems confused about, she smiles and thanks me. "When did you get in?" Anna asks and I notice her bag at our feet, a letter with the American wizarding school's crest on it sticking out of it. I glance at her and she notices what I spotted says, "Oh, I graduated school early a couple months ago, that's my congratulatory letter. It came late because of all the stuff that's been going on in America."
"Ah, yes," I say before lowering my tone and saying, "I floo'd in just now."
Her eyes go wide and she whispers, "Does your aunt know?"
"Yeah, her and Dudley both do, do your parents know?" I ask in a similar tone
She nods before saying in a normal tone, "Which school do you go too?"
"Hogwarts." I say.
Aunt Petunia gives me a wide eyed look as Anna says, "Nice, I recently graduated from Ilvermorny. What house are you in? I was a Wampus."
"I'm in Slytherin." I say as I begin making mince pies while Anna moves on to making pigs in a blanket. As I'm working I hear the Floo go off. A second later Lily and Harry walk in, holding three presents each.
"We're here." Lily says nervously.
"Come on in." Petunia says with a smile. "Presents go by the tree."
They put the presents by the tree and Aunt Petunia walks over and greets Lily, who hugs her before leading her into the other room, presumably to tell her what happened to her. When they come back in Aunt Petunia looks upset. She takes a breath before setting to work helping make food. Once the last of it is in the oven we go to open the presents.
I pull the gifts I brought with me out and pass them to Aunt Petunia, who sets them to the side before grabbing the first box and reading the tag. She passes it to Dudley before passing one of the same size to me.
Dudley gets a new weightlifting set, and my box turns out to be a new archery target set. I smile and me and Dudley say the same thing, "Nice."
"Thank you Aunt Petunia." I say before pointing at a green wrapped box that is on top of the presents I brought, "That one there is for you. I made it in Ancient Runes Class." Lily gives me a concerned look. "Everyone here knows about Magic."
"I went to Ilvermorny." Anna tells her and she relaxes as Aunt Petunia opens the package and finds a silver locket with a set of runes carved into it.
Petunia gasps when she sees it and looks at me for an explanation. I smile and say, "Open it and think of any happy memory you have. The memory will play out where the picture goes normally. I thought you'd like a way of reflecting on the good things you've been though."
She smiles and says, "That was very thoughtful of you, Iris. Thank you."
The presents continue until she reaches the last two and gives me a confused look. I take a breath and say, "I'll pass those out." she hands them to me and I turn to the Harry and Lily, "I got these for you two a couple days ago." I hand them their gifts and they open them, Lily got a necklace with a silver lily pendent hanging from it, and Hadrian got a bracelet with a lightning bolt hanging from it. "They aren't too special. They just make it so any spells or curses others try to place on you have no effect."
"Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you." Lily says before they put them on, Lily helping Harry. After that we all eat before me, Harry, and Lily return to Hogwarts to get ready for the ball. I go down to the dungeons and get dressed before heading out to meet Hella.
